How Cotopaxi Provides Sibly’s AI-Assisted Coaching 24/7 To Employees

In the ongoing adventure known as life, you never know when mental health and other life challenges may emerge. Such challenges don’t tend to say, “Oh, by the way, are you free around 1 am next Thursday? Because it’s going to be a doozy.” That’s why Cotopaxi, an adventure lifestyle BCorp, has entered into a partnership with Sibly to provide Sibly’s text-based AI-assisted coaching platform. Designed to make coaching available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, this platform allows Cotopaxi employees using the mobile app to reach a coach within, oh, about 15 seconds. That kind of rapid response time is key because “Your approximate wait time is five hours” or “Hold please, while we play the muzak version Iron Man by Black Sabbath” wouldn’t be the first things that you would want to hear when you are feeling particularly nervous, anxious, confused, disconnected, or down.

Sibly’s platform is available to not only all of Cotopaxi full-time and part-time employees but their spouses and dependents as well, as long as they are 18 years or older. Now, the artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted part of the platform is not the coach itself. No, the coaches are real humans. As Cindy Eaton, Sibly’s Vice President of Coaching, explained, “[The Sibley platform] has an on call system with people around the world trained in cognitive behavioral therapy. They are available 24/7, trained in motivational interviewing.”

To begin such text conversations, you can log on to the app via the following log-in screen:

During your conversation, AI algorithms may facilitate by helping identify available resources based on your insurance plan and other benefits, as can be seen here:

This isn’t limited to direct medical benefits. There are also links to other benefits such as financial services-related ones:

The AI can also assist the coaches by using data and available scientific evidence to choose and refine their approaches when messaging back and forth with you as the following graphic from Sibly shows:

Thus, the Sibly platform is kind of like a combination coach, mental health advisor, resource guide, and benefits manager. You can also throw data analyst in there, as will be explained further later. The app won’t vacuum your floor, though.

This partnership is the culmination of a journey that Cotopaxi embarked on during the Covid-19 pandemic. Dusty Hardy, Manager of People Operations at Cotopaxi mentioned, “The movement to more remote work did create a new environment of physical disconnection, more populations with potentially no access to mental health resources.”

Now, mental health challenges haven’t been like the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Such challenges certainly aren’t new. And they shouldn’t have caught the U.S. with its proverbial pants down in 2020. Instead, mental health challenges have probably been around ever since humans have had brains. Unless you are a ficus plant, you have undoubtedly faced mental health challenges over and over again throughout your life prior to the pandemic. After all, life ain’t always pretty. It’s not like those Instagram photos and videos where everyone is hugging each other all the time and looks like they just came off a Hollywood set. Instead, life can be quite messy, sort of like holding some ribs with barbecue sauce, powdered doughnuts, and an ice cream cone at the same time in your bare hands while on a roller coaster an hour after you’ve just drunk a gallon of water. Yet, for years, many companies and institutions out there have treated mental health like it was a third rail. That’s despite mental health issues becoming even more and more prevalent over the past few decades, as I’ve covered for Forbes back in 2018. The pandemic didn’t create this growing national problem. It simply ripped the covers off of it.

All of this prompted Cotopaxi, which was founded in 2014, to proactively do more about mental health. The BCorp took its name from a volcano in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador, close to where founder Davis Smith grew up as a child and say the impact of extreme poverty, Cotopaxi also has had as its slogan “Gear For Good,” which not only reflects their major product line—outdoor apparel aimed at being environmentally, economically, and socially friendly—but apparently other aspects of the company, based on what Hardy indicated. Hardy, who initially interacted with the company as a consultant, described Cotopaxi as “The first place that walks the walk. Employees matter. It creates a safer space rather than being just another organization. It’s OK to be vulnerable here.” She went on to say, “We want Cotopaxi to be a career highlight for everyone, regardless of someone’s tenure.”

Therefore, Cotopaxi geared up in a different way and issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for anyone who can provide coaching services to the company’s employees, who span 14 different states. As Hardy related, “Sibley came out on top for four reasons. The first was that the platform is a cost-effective solution that we could roll-out to the entire population, not just full-time employees.”

The second reason was the aforementioned ability to “Coordinate with other benefits. As an employee walks through the coaching experience, there can be immediate referral to other services.”

The third reason was Sibley’s ability to “Provide aggregate insights. They provide weekly reports and monthly reports to give insights to show where to make shifts.” Hardy added that these reports are aggregated and anonymized so that Cotopaxi won’t know who specifically said what and sought what services. Eaton mentioned, “Sibly keeps employees’ identifying information separate from their account. All the safety data put is only accessible by three people who are licensed mental health professionals. Cotopaxi can’t really connect the data to any specific person.”

Finally, the fourth reason was, in Hardy’s words, “Beyond coaching. Sibly is a true partner, offering robust programming offerings such as ‘Lunch and learns’ and music for well-being.” Eaton emphasized, “One of Sibly’s core values is to always do things based on research. The webinars the we offer are on what is state-of0art as opposed what you can Google.”

Hardy mentioned that the soft launch of the Sibly app occurred on February 1. She said, “Within 24 hours, 8% of employees had downloaded and 5% had begun using.” Hardy did add that the Sibly platform is “Not meant to replace a therapist but is to just give an outlet, a one-on-one experience.” Eaton talked about how Sibly’s platform is a, “Less expensive lower-level intervention way to provide some type of care that isn’t full on face-to-face treatment. We are trying to catch things early on and help people work through what they want to change.”

The Sibly platform does offer continuity rather than simply, separate, disparate, isolated conversations. A given conversation will then shape subsequent conversations, sort of like how a live on-site person won’t say, “And who are you again,” each time he or she meets you. Eaton pointed out one feature of the app, the “Agenda Map,” that help keep track of different issues that have and may eventually come up to address:

All of this may allow Cotopaxi to move its benefits for employees and its Gear for Good mantra into second gear, so to speak. This Cotopaxi-Sibly partnership appears to be working well because both organization seem geared towards similar directions, based on what both Hardy and Eaton said. “[Their] missions have come together,” in the words of Eaton. She added, “We work best with organizations that are fully invested in their population.”

Moreover, this partnership also merges a couple trends that should only grow in the future: organizations being more proactive about mental health and the use of AI. Yes, AI ain’t like planking or dabbing. It’s not like a fad that will soon disappear. Instead, AI is around for good. Well, hopefully, for the most part good.